Profile of the Thing
Real name: Benjamin Jacob Grimm
Powers: massive strength, all-but
invulnerable rock-like skin
Birthplace: Queens, New York
Base of operations: New York City, New York
First appearance: Fantastic Four #1, November 1961
Ben Grimm grew up in a poor family in New York’s blue-collar Queens
area, where he spent time in his younger years with the Yancy Street
Gang. After the deaths of his parents, he was taken into custody by
his uncle Jake Grimm, who’d been luckier to rise from poverty to
success as a physician. He resisted their kindness at first, but
eventually came to accept their love for him. He left behind his
life with the Yancy Street Gang, and became a football star in high
school, winning a football scholarship for college. When attending,
his roommate was Reed Richards, a brilliant science student who
became his closest friend. Later, when graduating, he enrolled in
the US Air Force academy, where he became a top test pilot and
astronaut. As a pilot, Ben also took part in many special
operations, some of which were covert, and which introduced him to
then fellow Air Force cadet Carol Danvers, who’s become Ms.
Marvel/Binary/Warbird since then.
When Reed Richards and then fionce Sue Storm, and her younger
brother Johnny, were trying to finance Reed’s own starship, which he
built with both his own fortune and US government funding, and the
latter threatened to withdraw their support for his inventions, Ben
was asked to help them in launching it by serving as pilot for the
craft into space. Ben agreed, and Sue and Johnny insisted on going
as passengers. They were all subjected to massive cosmic ray
bombardment, and Ben was forced to abort mission and return to
earth, but not before the rays had already led to their gaining
superpowers, and in his case, to be turned into an orange rock-like
monster as well. Morose about his grotesque new appearance, Ben
decided to call himself “The Thing.”
Even so, the newly formed Fantastic Four became the world’s most
respected and celebrated superheroes, including the Thing, and Ben
served as a member for many years. Over the years, Ben’s appearance
has changed in his physical appearance from orange rock, dense, but
still comparatively smooth forms, to a flexible, interlocking
network of rock-like lumps. Likewise, even his superhuman strength
has increased considerably from time to time. And sometimes, he’s
even turned back to his human form too, but neither the changes that
occurred to him, nor any induced by Reed in his attempts to turn him
back to human form ever proved to be permanent.
He's been able to get used to his being “the ever lovin’, blue eyed
Thing” over the years, and Alicia Masters, the blind sculptress who
was lauded for her ability to shape sculptures by feeling the shape
of her subjects, and whom Ben fell in love, was instrumental in
helping him to adjust to his life in the rock-like form. He didn’t
tell her right away about his actual appearance, but she told him
years later, when they were being held captive by Doctor Doom in
1981, that she’d realized what he’d been turned into for longer than
he’d thought.
Over the years, he’d gone solo at times, travelling around the
country on various adventures with other superheroes, working
briefly for a time as a wrestler for the Unlimited Class Wrestling
Federation. He then joined briefly as a member of the West Coast
Avengers during its initial years, and was involved for a time with
both the second Ms. Marvel, Sharon Ventura, and She-Hulk/Jennifer
Walters, who was also his substitute in the Fantastic Four during
his absence from the other three members.
In 2002, his Jewish background was fully acknowledged, in a stand
alone story exploring his childhood on Yancy Street, and a case that
brought him back there to investigate.
Copyright Avi Green. All rights
reserved.
